Adventures of a Renaissance runaway

Newbery-winning novelist Karen Cushman introduces her first male leading character in Will Sparrow’s Road, an engaging historical fiction adventure set in 1599, in Elizabethan England. By all accounts, including his own, young Will Sparrow is a liar, a thief and a runaway. Will lives the only way he can—by his wits. It’s no wonder his motto has become: “I care for no one...

Shattering the sounds of silence

Karen Cushman's voice is something to be reckoned with, whatever century she happens to be writing about. She won a Newbery Honor in 1995 for her first novel, Catherine, Called Birdy, and the 1996 Newbery Medal for The Midwife's Apprentice, both set in medieval England. Cushman has also written 19th-century historical fiction with books...

A vivid trip to Elizabethan London

Meggy Swann is appalled by the bustle and filth of Elizabethan London when her father, an alchemist who doesn’t set much store by truth or integrity, summons her to the city to work as his apprentice. Meggy has been used to living a secluded life in a country village with only her grandmother and her goose Louise as friends. With her crippled legs, Meggy has endured taunts and threats,...